Tuesday, 3 February 2015

Sometimes

When I was young, and there was something I really really wanted, I'd find a million reasons why I wouldn't get it, why I didn't deserve it, why it wasn't worth the wanting. And just the same last year, when I thought we might be able to come back to Shoreham, I tried to convince myself, and anyone who'd listen, that it didn't really matter.

I made myself think about the darkness in winter, the frequency of power cuts, the scarcity of parking, as though all those things might somehow be a charm against disappointment.

I tried not to think about the kindness of neighbours who offer you a home, and make you feel like it's yours. I stopped walking through the village in my mind.

I almost forgot the views from the house in Crown Road; looking out the front bedroom window, past the Chapel and across to the allotments; standing on the doorstep to see the street tipping down towards the river; feeling how the hills hold the village in on either side.

I somehow let slip the sounds of sparrows in the tree across the road, the roar of the oil-fired boiler as it starts up in the morning, the click of wood on wood as the front door closes shut.

I steeled myself against revisiting too often the other memories; of putting up the Christmas lights; of Philip chopping wood, lighting fires, clearing snow; of the day he proposed and the day we got married.

Then I found out that sometimes, the things you really really want, are the things you might deserve, and the things you end up getting.